Executive Summary
The electrical contracting sector (VAT 5015) is one of the specialist
segments of the construction industry. It is estimated that the value of work
done by the sector amounted to £4.5bn in 1995. This represented 9.2% of
the value of work done by the private contractors within the construction
industry as a whole and an increase of around 15.4% in relation to 1994.
The electrical contracting sector has a large number of small firms. It is
estimated that in 1994, 85% of the firms had a turnover of less than
£250,000 per annum. If the number of employees is taken as a criterion for
size, then, in 1994, 94.2% of the firms had fewer than seven employees. 54.7%
of the total number of firms were one-man outfits. At the other end, there was
a very small number of large firms, taken here to mean those having a turnover
of more than £5m per annum.
The employment pattern within the sector is simple; it is estimated that for
1995, the proportion of working proprietors was 25.6%, the operatives accounted
for 52.4% and `other staff', taken to mean the administrative, clerical and
technical personnel, accounted for 22%.
The average value of the work done by each firm varies almost exponentially as
a function of its size. The one-man outfit averaged around £9,000 for the
third quarter of 1994, but the large firms averaged approximately £19m for
the same quarter.
For 1995, it was estimated that 52.5% of the value of work done came from the
new works sector and the rest from repair and maintenance. Repair and
maintenance of housing accounted for 20% of the total for the sector, of other
public works for 9.5% and of other works for the private sector, the value of
work done was 18%.
In the medium term, the prospects for the electrical contracting sector are not
very good. The value of work done for 1995 was estimated at £4.5bn and it
is estimated that for 1996 there will be a decline of around 4.4% to
approximately £4.3bn. The forecast for 1997 is that there will be a
further decline and the value of work done will fall to approximately
£3.9bn. It should remain around the same level in 1998, but with the extra
activities that the Millennium preparation may well generate, one may expect a
recovery in 1999 and the year 2000, to approximately £4.2bn and
£4.5bn respectively.
Fourth Edition 1996
Edited by Richard Caines
ISBN 1-85765-600-8
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